Teskey declared a dangerous offender

Violent criminal Leo Teskey was declared a dangerous offender in an Edmonton courtroom on Friday.

Leslie Miller brought her husband Dougald to court on Friday to be present for the decision.

Teskey was sentenced in connection with the beating Dougald Miller nearly ten years ago. On November 21, 2000, Miller was managing a northside apartment building when he found Teskey sleeping in a hallway. Miller tried to escort Teskey out but was attacked. The beating left Miller with a fractured skull, broken nose and jaw and part of his ear torn off. He was left in a vegetative state and cannot move or speak, communicating only through blinks and groans.

This case has been back and forth in the court system for almost a decade. In 2002, Teskey was convicted for the attack on Miller and subsequently declared a dangerous offender. However, that conviction was thrown out in 2007 by the Supreme Court after the trial judge took several months to reach his written verdict and the dangerous offender status was overturned. In February 2008, Teskey was convicted once again of aggravated assault and break and enter and another dangerous offender hearing began.

The Miller beating case was not the first time Teskey had faced a dangerous offender designation. His first hearing was in 1995, after he was convicted of aggravated assault on a young boy he was babysitting. At that time, the judge ruled he was not a dangerous offender – and was given a six month sentence. He has almost forty convictions on his record, including shooting a police officer in the head in 1989.

A dangerous offender designation carries an indefinite sentence, and Teskey could only be released if the National Parole Board believes he would pose no threat to society.